Latino Men Who Powered Trump’s 2024 Win Cool on Him in New Poll - Newsweek

Latino men who helped fuel President Donald Trump's return to the White House in the 2024 election are turning away from him ahead of November's midterm elections, according to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll.

Hispanic and Latino voters have historically broken for Democrats, but Trump made inroads with these voters in the last election, helping propel his return to the White House in key states, especially in places like Arizona and Nevada. Democrats have worked to win back Hispanic and Latino voters in the midterms, and a key question is whether there will be a reversion back to Democrats or if the GOP gains are permanent.

A reversal among Latino men could have major implications for Republicans in November, especially in competitive House districts and statewide races in Texas, Nevada and Florida.

In a statement emailed to Newsweek on Sunday, White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster said that the president “was honored to receive a record level of support from Hispanic Americans that helped fuel his landslide 2024 election victory, and he’s spent every day since his inauguration working to make life better for them, and all Americans."

Schuster continued: "From passing the largest middle-class tax cuts in American history, including No Tax on Tips, Overtime, and Social Security, to defeating Biden’s inflation crisis, hardworking Hispanic Americans are beginning to have some breathing room after four years of economic pain under the Democrats. There’s much more work to do, which is why President Trump and Republicans in Congress will continue fighting to make everyday life more affordable for working families.”

According to the NBC News/Telemundo survey, Trump's approval rating among Latino men stands at 33 percent, while 64 percent disapprove of his job performance.

The poll also found Democrats hold a 24-point advantage among Latino voters on the generic congressional ballot, with 59 percent preferring Democratic control of Congress and 35 percent favoring Republicans.

While Latino women remain more Democratic than Latino men, both groups now hold largely negative views of Trump. Democrats lead Republicans among Latino women by 31 points, with 62 percent favoring Democratic control of Congress and 31 percent backing Republicans. Among Latino men, Democrats hold a narrower but still significant 16-point advantage, 53 percent to 39 percent.

Even among Latino men, sentiment toward Trump has deteriorated sharply. Latino men, like the broader Latino electorate, expressed significant concerns about the economy and immigration enforcement, according to the poll.

The survey found broader dissatisfaction across the Latino electorate. Trump holds a 27 percent approval rating among Latino voters overall, while 69 percent disapprove of his job performance. Seventy-four percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, 78 percent disapprove of his handling of the cost of living and 69 percent disapprove of his handling of immigration.

Economic concerns appear to be driving much of the shift. Nearly two-thirds of Latino voters, 65 percent, said Trump's policies have hurt economic conditions, while 63 percent said their household income is falling behind the cost of living.

The poll found Latino voters now give Democrats a 21-point advantage on handling the economy, a reversal from 2024 when Trump held a four-point edge over then-Vice President Kamala Harris on the issue.

Meanwhile, 67 percent said Trump's immigration enforcement measures have gone too far, compared with 22 percent who said the administration has taken the right approach.

In NBC News' comparable 2024 survey, Democrats' current 24-point advantage among Latino voters on the generic congressional ballot is double the lead they held at a similar point in 2024, according to NBC News polling.

Still, Republicans retain some of the gains they made during the Trump era. NBC News noted that GOP support among Latino voters remains higher than in polling conducted before the 2024 election cycle, even as dissatisfaction with Trump has increased.

The NBC News/Telemundo poll surveyed 800 registered Latino voters from September 21 to 28 via a mix of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text messages. Overall, 20 percent of the interviews were conducted in Spanish. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of Hispanic Federation, told Newsweek in an emailed statement on Sunday that the organization's "polls leading up to the last presidential election indicated that pocketbook concerns were top of mind for Latino voters. It is not surprising to me that this recent poll confirms what we have said for the past few years, that many candidates failed to present policy solutions that address Latino voter concerns."

Miranda continued: "This strain is made worse when voters see how a few politicians used their influence to provide a surge in funding for aggressive immigration enforcement, a decision that hyper-charged an agency that has terrorized our neighborhoods and enacted violence across the country that resulted in avoidable killings, including of U.S. citizens. Latino voters are disappointed."

The CEO said that when political priorities are misaligned with voter priorities, inherently there will be a divergence in electoral support.

"That is what we are seeing today," Miranda said. "In the next few weeks, it will be crucial for campaigns to adapt their messages to provide meaningful answers to Latinos' real concerns and explain how to justify so many broken promises."

In August, CNN data analyst Harry Enten highlighted polling data showing Trump’s approval slipping among Hispanic voters. He pointed to polling data from CNN and SSRS showing that the president’s approval rating among Hispanic men is -41 points despite winning them by 10 points less than two years ago when he ran against Harris.

“All of that movement that you saw, that historic performance that President Trump had among Hispanic men, adios amigos. Goodbye. See you later,” he said.

Enten said the shift is largely due to the economy, with data showing his approval on the economy among Hispanic men stood at -49 points, despite being more trusted by 11 points over Harris in the fall of 2024.

“What we’re seeing among Hispanic men and their views of President Trump very much diving toward the negative, absolutely look like they’re going to have a massive impact on the midterm elections,” Enten said.

That data is backed up by some other polls, though many pollsters do not release crosstab data for Hispanic men specifically, as that is often a small subset that may not always be statistically significant.

Civiqs, which has surveyed more than 123,000 Americans since January 2025 on Trump’s approval rating, does provide such information. It found that 59 percent of Hispanic and Latino men disapproved of Trump, while 36 percent approved.

Meanwhile, a UnidosUS poll also found him underwater with Latino men, finding his approval at 34 percent and disapproval at 64 percent. It surveyed 3,000 Latino registered voters from April 27 to May 14, 2026, and had a margin of error overall of ±1.8 percentage points.

The economy is a central reason why Trump’s approval has fallen with Hispanic and Latino voters, Matt A. Barreto, faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project and Democratic Pollster to Biden’s 2020 campaign, previously told Newsweek.

“Trump made wild and unrealistic promises in 2024 about lowering the cost of living, bringing down the cost of gasoline and making healthcare more affordable," he said. "Now almost two years later he has not delivered on any of his economic promises and Latinos, men in particular, are viewing election through the lens of affordability.”

While Democrats do have an opportunity to win back Latino voters, there will not be an “automatic rebound,” he said.

“Democrats need to convince Latinos they are fighting for them and fighting for the middle class to bring down costs," he said. "Given how bad the Latino numbers look for Trump, Democrats should take this chance to double and triple their investment in Latino outreach in the final months.”

Trump was able to win over Latino men in 2024 by promising “to address concrete economic issues” affecting them, while he also “played off the tough, deliberative male patriarch,” Charles Venator-Santiago, professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, told Newsweek. Many Latino men “generally vote like Blue Dog Democrats,” and may not be gravitating toward the party’s progressive shift, he said.

He pointed to Trump’s immigration policy as one sticking point that could be costing him support.

“Trump’s ICE has been racially profiling Latinos [regardless of citizenship status] and persecuting Latinos," he said. "ICE has committed civil and human rights abuses that cross various lines, even for conservative Latinos.”

The NBC News/Telemundo poll showed that Latino voters ranked inflation and the cost of living as their top concern, while two-thirds said Trump's immigration enforcement policies have gone too far.

The shift also comes amid heightened attention to immigration enforcement, including the July shooting death of Houston construction worker Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during an ICE operation and the nonfatal shooting of Venezuelan DoorDash driver Wilber Rafael Garces Perez.

Both parties are expected to intensify efforts to win over Latino voters before the 2026 midterms.

Republican pollster Micah Roberts, who conducted the poll with Democratic pollster Aileen Cardona-Arroyo, described Latino voters as "the swingiest of swing groups" and said the shift since 2024 was "stunning."

Democrats also face challenges of their own. While Latino voters are moving away from Trump, the poll found views of the Democratic Party have not significantly improved, showing that 42 percent have a negative view of it, a 4-point increase from 2024.

With 72 percent of Latino voters rating their interest in the upcoming election as a 10 out of 10 and 54 percent saying their vote is intended as a signal of opposition to Trump, both parties are likely to view Latino voters, and Latino men in particular, as among the most consequential voting blocs of this year's campaign.

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Steve Mollman and Anthony Murray.